Gau Mata and cow keeping: an honest reckoning

Cow keeping today has largely become a dairy business. The cow now looks less like part of the household and more like a unit of production. Artificial insemination for more milk, continuous extraction, and neglect the moment her usefulness falls: this is the hard truth, one we all know and all look away from. In such a setting, calling the cow "Mother" makes the new generation uncomfortable. Their problem is not with the word; it is with our conduct. When respect sits in the speech and conduct sits in the accounts, the question arises of its own accord. In tradition the cow was called Mother because she was not merely a source of milk but was held to be the axis of household life. In the Vedic way of seeing, the cow, the land and the grain were three parts of one balance. The calf's claim came first, the milk was limited, and protection was a lifelong duty. Respect stood above usefulness. Today the position is reversed: the milk is entirely ours, the old age is entirely hers. The days of worship are one thing, the days of conduct another. "Mother" in our words, "resource" in our system. We kept the tradition and let go of the responsibility behind it. We kept the feeling of dharma without its discipline. We kept the language of compassion, and the habit of convenience alongside it. Three clear roads now lie before us:

• If this is only a business, do not give it the name of dharma.
• If this is both a livelihood and a service, accept both the profit and the duty.
• And if this is truly dharma, then compassion will have to be placed above profit.

Calling the cow Mother is not the problem. Calling her Mother and not behaving like a son is the problem. Society does not need to change its words; it needs to be honest. Either we hold this to be a business, or we hold it to be a real relationship. The convenience of standing between the two is the greatest contradiction of all.